RealLIST Connectors 2025: These 20 leaders stoke Baltimore’s rep for innovation

RealLIST Connectors 2025 in Baltimore is supported by University of Delaware Horn Entrepreneurship. Technical.ly is a free news resource thanks to financial partners like this!

Never underestimate the power of a chance meeting to completely change your professional journey.

Soon after college, in the middle of what you might call a quarter-life crisis, I met a Philadelphia news editor when we were both singing in the same classical chorus. Had I never met her, I probably wouldn’t have considered a career in journalism! That opportunity begat so many more and ultimately led down I-95 to Baltimore and a position with Technical.ly. 

The people we recognize as RealLIST Connectors intuitively understand what introducing people, projects and ideas to one another can do — not just for an individual, but a whole region. 

We’re back this year with another round of accelerator managers, meetup organizers, industry boosters and others who make the Baltimore region’s innovation ecosystem what it is.

To build this list, we reviewed our reporting, tapped into the local tech community and collected public nominations. We then took time to validate the nominees and better understand them through a newly introduced survey. In many cases, we already knew these nominees from local events that show the depth of their connectivity. 

This year’s RealLIST Connectors join the company of the nearly 200 other leaders we’ve recognized in Baltimore over the past few years; check out our 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020 rosters. 

Whether you’re deep in the city or spread out in the counties, scroll to meet your 2025 RealLIST Connectors. 

Did we miss anybody? Remember that you can nominate future RealLIST Connectors — and future RealLIST Startups and Engineers, too — all year round via this form. 

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